Tuesday, November 30, 2010

The Globe devotes most of the cover this week to a passel of "Where are they now?" stories. I am going to split the celebrities into two groups, ones who were famous before I graduated high school, a.k.a Hey Old Timer Gossip, and the ones whose claims to fame came after I graduated.

The old timers first.

Andy Griffith

Hayley Mills

Shirley Temple

Erin Murphy (Tabitha on Bewitched)

The somewhat younger crew.

Lynda Carter

Richard Moll (Night Court)

Carrie Fisher

Peter Billingsley (A Christmas Story)

Chris Darden and Marcia Clark

If you have any question as to why I picked a picture of Lynda Carter to represent this group, you will never have a career in tabloid journalism.

When the tabloids use the word "nightmare", it often means something scary that isn't true. Rosie O'Donnell, whose mom died young of breast cancer, had two lumps removed this month and E! online reports the biopsies were negative.

Monday, November 29, 2010

The supermarket rags are happy to create drama where there really isn't much. Hank Baskett is still in love with his silly little wife and his adorable baby son. They are living in separate cities because she has to be a reality TV star. That means they get to have "emotional reunions".

I'm mystified by the popularity of this stuff, but then again, I've never really gotten into daytime soap operas, and clearly there is a large market that eats that stuff up with a spoon.

I just read the covers of the supermarket rags, I don't actually buy them, in more ways than one. I'm amazed they have decided the audience keeps wanting to hear about this bimbo. She's just not that interesting.

The Flagship continues with the charade that they have inside information about Natalee Holloway's murder that actual legitimate news organizations don't have or won't publish. Last week a jawbone was found, but dental records say it wasn't Natalee's. The Flagship says that more bodies were found, which is true, but the grim details of how she died are only known to the man who killed her, who nearly everyone believes is Joran van der Sloot, and if he is giving information, it isn't very reliable.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Leslie Nielsen, the Canadian actor who started as a leading man in movies like Forbidden Planet and went on to a successful career in TV dramas, all of that nearly forgotten because of his even bigger successes late in his career in zany madcap comedies like Airplane! and The Naked Gun, has died at the age of 84 of complications from pneumonia. Surely, the supermarket gossip magazines will have cover story tributes to him in next week's editions.

It isn't surprising to see either Taylor Swift or Carrie Underwood on the cover of a supermarket rag. They are the young queens of country music and several publications have shown interest in their respective love lives this year, Carrie happily married and Taylor playing the field with several eligible bachelors, though some of them are rumored to be hairdressers.

What is surprising is to see a negative story about either of these young ladies AND to see it in the low rent Examiner. It's rare for them to run stories about women under 30 years old, and when they do, it's often because a young woman is playing supporting actress to an older woman, like Bristol Palin being a prop for her mom's ambitions or Kate Middleton's sweet young princess in support of the lead character, wicked witch Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Star magazine says Sandra Bullock is planning to adopt again so that Louis will have a sister. This story has already been shot down by Sandra's publicist.

It should be noted that Sandy has so far snubbed all the dogs in the AMI kennel since she went public with Louis' adoption back in May. There have been photo shoots in all the non-AMI supermarket rags (People, In Touch, OK!, Weekly Life & Style, Us Weekly) and nothing in the five magazines owned by AMI. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this can't possibly be a coincidence.

So this looks like the Star trying to offer an olive branch by publishing a nice but false story and Sandy shooting them down. Good for Sandy.

Here's a quick tip. If a headline on a supermarket rag reads "baby news", you can be pretty sure the news is "no baby, but she's like one, maybe soon". According to online sources, that is the current situation with J. Lo.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

The AMI kennel doesn't like Sarah Palin much. I assumed they told bad stories about her because it's easy to find people who know her and don't like her or her brood and are willing to cash in a payday as a "source". But what if there is an ulterior motive, throwing sand on her fire so that someone else can be president in 2012?

What about Donald Trump, the thick-fingered vulgarian* who has become a reality TV star in his own right on his ridiculous show The Apprentice? The Flagship puts "Trump for President" on the cover with a quote from him "I can save America!" and a chance to vote in a poll.

Thanks, Enquirer! I needed a laugh this week.

The closest Donald Trump will ever get to elected office is that he once dated Carla Bruni, who is a good singer-songwriter, first lady of France and has fantastic gams, but her taste in men can be described as dodgy at best.

*Tip of the hat to the late lamented Spy magazine, who first called Trump a "thick-fingered vulgarian" and used the epithet at least once in every story they ran about him.

Reliable online gossip sources like GossipCop.com say the story is they would only get married for the money they could make on gifts. If that were the case, why would people come to the wedding knowing that? Or why wouldn't they come for some free food and booze, then bug out without leaving a gift?

It might be true, but it looks more like a rumor and there's no way it's "official". In Touch gets a fail label for this one.

Friday, November 26, 2010

If you've been following the Facebook debacle, there is no question that Willow Palin is quite a handful and her mom isn't reining her in very well. But Weekly Life & Style goes way past declaring Willow is officially a Mean Girl like her mom and now says she's a druggie.

If it's true, it's the Scoop of the Week. Weekly Life & Style doesn't have a Scoop of the Week yet this year, and they aren't super reliable. They were the only supermarket rag that went with the story found in online gossip sources about Demi Lovato being a coke hound.

This story says Willow was "caught in a drug deal", which implies the police and the courts are involved. Checking online, Wonkette provides the juicy details, that it was other Wasilla stoners who "caught" her and the police are not involved. Because of the easy deniability and difficult standard of proof, this one gets a Meanest Story nomination.

That said, I think Willow may be the last and biggest nail in the coffin of Sarah Palin's political aspirations before this is all through.

The Star had a beauty bloopers cover back in July, and they have one again in late November. There were some "Guess Who?" pictures, but I leave those alone, because that would entail me opening the magazine, which I try to avoid unless absolutely necessary.

As we can see in these pictures nicked from TMZ.com, Uma Thurman was seen with white powder that was either cocaine, powdered sugar from a donut or clown make-up.

After workouts, Angelina Jolie has veins that look like ropes.

But worst of all by entertainment standards, Bristol Palin has at least one extra chin.

The Palins are starting to get supermarket coverage that is almost Kardashian-esque, but unlike the Kardashians, none of the gossip rags seem interested in being the Palins' allies at the moment.

Wills'N'Kate is the biggest story of the week by far in The Only Ten Magazines That Matter, but not far behind is the Eva Longoria-Tony Parker break-up. Some covers only mention her, others only him, so mention both. Weekly Life & Style and Us Weekly go with "Eva's Revenge" as the headline, while OK! has "How Eva Found Out".

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Why do I bother posting prophecies which I know will not come true? Because I believe in reason and I would like more people to do the same. Every time someone talks to you about the uncanny abilities of Edgar Cayce or Nostradamus or any prophet, look at how bad their track records really are.

Of course, the Sun doesn't always rely on the big brand name prophets, but they did a bunch of predicting for Thanksgiving, much the same way they predicted a lot of stuff for September 11 and came up with nothing.

Nukes were supposed to be flying. They didn't.Pope Benedict would tell us the date for the End of the World. He didn't.Hillary would file for divorce from Bill by now. Yet another failure.Billy Graham would tell us God's plan for peace, told to him by an angel. Hmm, not so much.

The Sun, expecting no one is keeping track, has some new prophecies that hit the newsstands today, and they repeat the Hillary and Billy Graham stories nearly verbatim, but now say they will be happening by New Year's. Once again, don't bet on it. In fact, if you can find someone dim enough to bet that they will come true, bet the farm that they won't come true. It's easy money.

Well, this week, if we count Wills'N'Kate as a couple, they broke the old record by getting eight covers total. In something of a surprise, it was Weekly Life & Style and the Enquirer who decided not to play. the Sun has a prophecy about Wills being king before New Year's and the Examiner and Globe took the royal engagement as an opportunity to trash Camilla Parker-Bowles and Prince Charles repsectively, two of their favorite punching bags.

I leave the last word of the week to People, who give Kate Middleton most of the cover, calling her a perfect princess. The sub-headlines include stories about her style, her childhood and prince.

This blog, in keeping with our staunch pro-love policy, wish the young couple every happiness.

Again, if anyone is going to publish a story about Wills'N'Kate with a negative slant, it's going to be someone from the AMI kennel, this time the low rent Examiner. Last week, the Globe won the Meanest Story of the Week by publishing a story that Wills had banned Charles' gay lover from the wedding. Now, the Examiner says Wills will ban Camilla Parker-Bowles.

I am not 100% convinced there is a gay lover, and if there is, I'm not 100% convinced it isn't Camilla Parker-Bowles.

I'm putting this story into Meanest Story of the Week competition, but it's not my favorite because of the added twist. Kate is asking her future husband to call a truce.

Isn't that nice? With the addition of such a diplomatic young lady, this family might actually make it through this century.

It would be presumptuous of me to think the editors of the Sun have even seen this blog in the eleven months it has existed, but I made some rules about when I would post stuff they published in their completely fictitious magazine and I'll be damned if they didn't follow those rules this week.

If they make a prediction about the future AND IT INCLUDES A DATE, I will publish it and keep track. If they just say the world is going to end of the End Times are already here, no dice.

On this Thanksgiving day, their cover is full of stories they say will happen by New Years, less than six weeks away.

Fun! Let's go!

The most interesting and least likely story is that Prince William will visit the White House this year as King. This would entail his grandma dying or abdicating and his dad getting the bum's rush.

That's a lotta stuff to happen in five weeks.

Oprah Winfrey will marry before New Year's Day.

Not announce an engagement. Marry.

And it won't be Stedman.

Since when did she get so antsy? If she's gonna get hitched, wouldn't she throw a Wills'N'Kate sized wingding?

Hillary Clinton will divorce Bill before New Year's Day.

Hmm, that's sounds familiar.

And last but also least, Billy Graham will reveal God's plan for mankind before the ball drops in Times Square.

Want a story that doesn't paint Kate Middleton in the most positive light? Then you should read the gossip rags from the AMI kennel. This week, it's the Star that decides we should know she's a scheming hussy barely one step removed from Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan. The sub-headlines are as follows:

How she wooed and won Wills

Wild nights at drinking clubs (here in the U.S., we usually call them "bars")

personal photo album

Inside the romantic hut in Kenya where he proposed

This isn't a hard prediction, but if there are going to be any unpleasant stories about the Young Royals over the next few months, expect them to be in the Enquirer, Examiner, Globe and Star. Some might also sneak into the Sun, but only if they decided to adopt The World's Fattest Cat.

If you ever thought to yourself, "I'd like to see so much stuff about Kate Middleton that I actually get a little sick of her", this is your lucky week! There are a few stories about Wills and some about them together as a couple, but the American gossip press figures that most Americans are only dimly aware of her and are trying to remedy that as quickly as possible.

Among the details on the cover of Us are:

Gowns, jewels and ladies in waiting

Strict new rules

How Kate's life has changed forever

What she's learned from Diana

The Only Ten Magazines That Matter are definitely going to be reminding us of Diana Spencer as often as they can over the next few months.

Wills'N'Kate-Mania has begun in the Only Ten Magazines That Matter, and it will likely last at least until the wedding. Whether this will make the Young Royals as important to the gossip rags as Kendra or Kim or, dare I say it, BrAngelina, time will tell.

OK!, friendly but too cheeky buggers that they are, now calls themselves "the official magazine of the Royals". I'll believe this is true when Queen Elizabeth II comes to Oakland, knocks on my apartment door and shows me the signed document and another sample of her handwriting.

The details on the cover this week from OK! include:

Kate picked the church

Will's brother Harry is delighted

Their secret honeymoon

Her tribute to Diana

While I don't know for sure exactly how popular Wills'N'Kate will get in the gossip rags, if this week's stories are any indication, Princess Diana is going to surpass Gary Coleman as Most Popular Dead Person for the supermarket magazines very quickly, probably before Christmas.

As you might guess, Wills and Kate are getting a lot of stories in The Only Ten Magazines That Matter this week, with many of them focusing on Kate Middleton, the young woman not yet saturated into American brains but soon will be.

In Touch tells us she is going to get a million dollar makeover. The Palace, the very old building with the very sensitive feelings, may think she doesn't dress properly, but in most of the pictures I've seen of her, her fashion sense is already pretty good.

Fresh trash on Thursdays! Two stories dominate the gossip rags this week, the upcoming wedding of Wills and Kate and the upcoming divorce of Eva Longoria and Tony Parker. As you might guess the stories about Wills and Kate are almost uniformly positive, but leave it to the Globe to piss in the punchbowl. They feature a headline that says QE II will skip over her son and make her grandson king when she dies. This rumor has been around for several years, based on an allegedly leaked memo from The Palace, the very old building with the very sensitive feelings.

The Globe beats the Examiner in the weekly Hey Old Timer Gossip contest, with two stories, one about Zsa Zsa Gabor and this one about Butch Patrick, best known as Eddie Munster, while the Examiner only told us bad news about Liza Minnelli.

If we are to believe the Globe, Butch drinks a little. Oh yeah, and there's drugs involved, too.

Us Weekly has a story about stars who are know for giving to charity this week. The pictures on the cover are Christina Aguilera, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez and Angelina Jolie. I put up a nice picture of Angelina because this is one of the few positive stories about her as a person on her own instead of as part of a couple that has been published this year in any supermarket gossip rag. The closest thing to another positive story about her was a compare and contrast the hotness of Angelina and Jennifer Aniston in OK! back in August.

Barbra Striesand gives People a tour of her home. I'm sure it's nice. I like the puppy already.

Barbra has a supporting role in Little Fockers, a sequel to a movie I didn't see, which will be released just before Christmas. It seems a little early for Planted Crap, but who am I to tell these people their business. As you might have already realized, no one is clamoring for a tour of Matty Boy's palatial estate.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Weekly Life & Style says Kate Gosselin will be dumped from her TV show. That would mean we wouldn't have to read about her anymore in gossip rags.

Wouldn't that be nice?

In the beginning of 2010, Kate Gosselin was one of the favorite cover stories in the American supermarket rags. Since June, the number of stories has fallen significantly. Soon, I'd guess no later than January 2011, when the gossip rags talk about "Kate" and do not mention a last name, it will mean a story about Kate Middleton and not Kate Gosselin.

As I have written before, the nicest thing that can be written about a person in a gossip rag is that they look good wearing very little clothing. The Star says Kelly Osbourne looks good in a bikini, and this picture on the cover of Shape would seem to confirm that, depending on how Photoshopped it is.

The Star is not as mean as the Three Wicked Step Sisters, but they are the meanest of the remaining seven supermarket rags so far this year. Their stories this week bucked that trend in a big way, especially this one and their story that Michael Douglas may be on the mend.

For the most part, the Only Ten Magazines That Matter leave athletes alone when they get involved in scandals, Tiger Woods being the obvious glaring exception. Other than Tiger, most of the other athletes mentioned this year only got noticed because their wives or girlfriends are of interest to the gossip rags. So it's a little odd that with the scandals that swirled around Super Bowl winning quarterbacks Brett Favre and Ben Roethlisberger this year, it's Super Bowl winner Tom Brady who makes it to the cover of The Flagship because he... has a hair transplant.

Allegedly.

Unlike Favre or Roethlisberger, Brady is married to someone famous in her own right, Victoria's Secret model Giselle Bundchen, but she isn't the kind of famous the supermarket rags are interested in.

This is a remarkably weak story and I'm surprised the Enquirer thinks the general public would care about this but not about Favre sending a picture of his private parts to some woman who refused to sleep with him.

Usually I hate The Flagship for having no sense of honor. Today I hate them for having no sense of perspective.

Elizabeth Smart, the young woman who was abducted in 2002 and held captive for nine months, will finally testify in court against her abductor, Brian David Mitchell. The headlines in the supermarket magazines this week read as follows.

It's a little odd how many trials are taking place this year dealing with crimes that took place eight or nine years ago. At least the reason for the delay in this one, hearings to determine if Mitchell was competent to stand trial, makes a little sense. Best wishes to Ms. Smart, her family and friends.

Monday, November 22, 2010

This story is a little strange, and not just because it's completely unbelievable. Supposedly, cash strapped NASA is going to send a family to Mars and they won't be bringing them back. This sounds like a Weekly World News story, but it's on the cover of the Sun in color, not in black and white, and the official and only Weekly World News headline this issue is about the World's Fattest Cat, the least interesting continuing story in the WWN's storied history.

Could the Sun be giving up on the end of the world stories? That would be sad.

I want to make it clear that I don't think there's a shred of truth in this story, but if we are going to send a family to Mars, would it be too much to ask for it to be this one? Pretty please?

If you tell the little wifey there's a big check attached, she's sure to jump at it. The fact there's nowhere to spend the money once they get to Mars won't occur to her until they are safely on their way.

If a story appears in the Star and Us Weekly, that does officially count as two separate stories. It doesn't make either story true, especially when a headline has a question mark in it, but they really are separate editorial entities, unlike the Three Wicked Step Sisters, the Enquirer, Globe and the low rent Examiner.